The present invention relates generally to image processing and, more particularly, to methods and apparatus which employ contractive transformations for representing images and compressing image data.
Processing of data representing pictures, or images, is becoming increasingly important. In particular, attention is being directed to the problem of compressing image data to permit such data to be stored and transmitted faster and more efficiently.
Some prior art data compression methods employ look-up tables as part of the compression procedure. Such methods can be useful in certain applications where the class of images being compressed is small. However, use of look-up tables as the primary compression mechanism limits the ability to provide a compression image which is adaptive to a large number of diverse images.
Methods and apparatus which avoid such problems of the prior art by the use of a fractal transform are described in copending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 07/375,840 entitled METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR PROCESSING DIGITAL DATA, filed Jul. 5, 1989, now U.S. Pat. No. 5,065,447 issued Nov. 12, 1991, by Michael F. Barnsley and Alan D. Sloan, and U.S. patent application Ser. No. 07/781,586 entitled IMPROVED METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR PROCESSING DIGITAL DATA, now U.S. Pat. No. 5,384,867 issued Jan. 24, 1995 filed on even date herewith by Michael F. Barnsley and Alan D. Sloan. These applications are hereby expressly incorporated by reference.
It is desirable to provide improved methods and apparatus for optimizing the techniques described in the aforementioned copending applications.